Two teenagers who carried out a revenge stabbing in Colchester in which a 17-year-old youth suffered life threatening injuries have been detained for a total of 13 years.
Ben Goodspeed and Tate Heeney hid behind a building and lay in wait for the youth who was then stabbed in the chest and forehead with a kitchen knife by Goodspeed and struck on the back of the head with a piece of wood by Heeney, Ipswich Crown Court heard.
As a result of the attack the youth suffered a puncture to the lower lobe of his left lung and underwent emergency surgery and a blood transfusion.
Goodspeed, 19, of Monkwick Avenue, Colchester, and Heeney, 18, of The Crescent, Great Horkesley, admitted wounding the victim with intent to do him grievous bodily harm in the attack in Osborne Street on January 20.
Sentencing Goodspeed to seven years detention in a young offenders’ institution and Heeney to six years youth detention, Judge Rupert Overbury said: “Both Parliament and the public have had enough of knife crime and both possession and use of a knife will be dealt with severely by the courts.”
He said that the consequences of knife crime were felt by not only the victims but also by their families, friends and schools and deterrent sentences had to be passed.
He said the victim of the stabbing had suffered potentially life-long damage to his dominant right hand and as a result had lost his dream of a military career.
He had also suffered disfiguring scars which made him self-conscious.
Judge Overbury described the incident as a revenge attack and said the defendants acted together to cause the victim’s injuries.
“Although one of you carried the knife you both knew what was going to happen and you both intended that it should happen,” said the judge.
“This was a premeditated attack. You hid yourselves and waited for the opportunity to attack,” he added.
He said that Heeney had tried to burn his clothes after the attack.
Paul Donegan, for Goodspeed, said his client had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and said the incident had been short-lived.
Steven Dyble, for Heeney, described his client’s involvement as “two or three seconds of folly” and said that he felt genuine remorse.
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